Not just him.There was a young French cyclist apparently with the same potential and age, around the time of Armstrong's 1st TDF win who didn't participate in the doping that was rife at the time.He ended being hounded out of the sport principally by Armstrong himself
Lance Armstrong to be charged with doping offences - Washington Post
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Not just him.There was a young French cyclist apparently with the same potential and age, around the time of Armstrong's 1st TDF win who didn't participate in the doping that was rife at the time.He ended being hounded out of the sport principally by Armstrong himself
It's been pretty common knowledge for a long time that he wasn't clean. In most of his wins, if you look back on them, nearly all of the top ten behind him have tested positive at some stage since, so barring him being superhuman there was obviously something fishy going on.
This is a clever move by him as he now doesn't have to watch the evidence against him played out in public and the people of Texas will still believe he is innocent. The evidence will come out eventually but it won't be sensational front page stuff if he's not denying the charges and the titles already taken from him
This is a clever move by him as he now doesn't have to watch the evidence against him played out in public and the people of Texas will still believe he is innocent. The evidence will come out eventually but it won't be sensational front page stuff if he's not denying the charges and the titles already taken from him
Agreed. I can't get too worked up about a sportsman being convicted of doping given how widespread it has to be. The vilification of certain individuals seems to be the equally dumb reaction to the bizarre extent sportsmen can to be glorified. I think it's quite possible to enjoy the spectacle of a sport in the way that many people seemed to enjoy the last Olympics, while knowing that there's a good chance that each athlete is doping.
What annoys me more is the uneven, unfair and usually soft way the issue of performance enhancing drugs is handled, especially by the governing bodies involved. I know nothing about cycling so can't say anything about this specific case, but the way Ben Johnson was and still is demonised while positive test results for a whole slew of American athletes were brushed under the carpet during the same period, feels wrong, as does the way some sportsmen seem to be allowed to escape punishment on a technicality. Focusing too heavily on the few individuals who are dumb or unlucky enough to be caught feels like it's missing the point.
Doping's a really interesting topic though, you'd think that we're due a scandal in football, even if as pointed out it's obviously less effective as in other sports.
They could declare an interregnum for those 7 years. As you say, it's not as if the runners up were clean.
What I don't understand is, if he was dirty the whole time, why keep racing? You've won one, feck win five or six and hold the record, but I do not understand why if you knew you were cheating, you would bring so much scrutiny on to yourself and risk being caught out.
This entire thing reeks and how do those protected by USADA get protected from the UCI? Whom by the way, have effectively came out and stated that this investigation is a joke.
This entire thing reeks and how do those protected by USADA get protected from the UCI? Whom by the way, have effectively came out and stated that this investigation is a joke.
Apply that to every athelete who has won without being clean, did they stop after that or continue to compete? I don't have a clue myself, but I'd doubt it's all that unique.
Plenty of explanations - to help raise money for charity, to line his own pockets, because he felt it was a level playing field with everyone doing it, because he felt it evened up his own disadvantage from having cancer, because he thought he'd never get caught or because he's an egomaniac who only cares about winning by any means necessary - it's not like we don't see them in football. Maybe he doesn't care about being caught out because he has all of his money safely invested away and has made $500m for his charity.
Or maybe he's telling the truth and he's never taken anything, and is just tired of fighting the allegations. I don't find that to be very likely from my limited reading of the case, but that, or a combination of any of the earlier explanations, could be the case.
From Twitter:
Gordon McCleary @ASouthernYankee
Just updated my resume. Hobbies section now includes: "Currently tied with Lance Armstrong in Tour de France victories."
Gordon McCleary @ASouthernYankee
Just updated my resume. Hobbies section now includes: "Currently tied with Lance Armstrong in Tour de France victories."
A joke? Hardly. The UCI made a statement saying they've no further comments until USADA have explained their decision to them, which they are obligated to as there will be no hearing now thanks to Armstrong himself. Even so, I wouldn't expect the UCI to be neutral on the matter. First of all, they've obviously got a lot to lose, but also little to gain, from this. This won't be seen as another step towards cleaning up the sport in the same way as if Lance was still active, in fact it'll probably be seen as an embarrassment that he wasn't caught while active. Then, of course, there are Armstrong's unprecedented donations to the UCI while he was still active which might affect their objectivity, especially if, as many suspect, the donations were made to sweep one or more positive tests under the carpet. The fact that Lance later lied about a $100.000 donation doesn't look to good either.
http://nyvelocity.com/content/interviews/2009/michael-ashenden
Just reading the RAWK cycling thread and saw this. It's an interview with a doping expert on Lance.
Just reading the RAWK cycling thread and saw this. It's an interview with a doping expert on Lance.
These were the positive results I was talking about in one of my previous posts. So in my mind, there is no doubt he took doping.
What's more interesting in that interview however is how many of the top riders were actually riding clean that year (well, at least EPO-free). I thought all the top riders in that Tour were on EPO.
Are they going to release all the evidence they have against him to the public? It's still all a bit murky and lacking detail. If they have clear cut evidence they need to get it out there. He can't escape this just because he's chosen not the fight them.
That's just what he's done, I suppose it was a case of damage limitation on his part.
Biggest cheater ever?
Yeah but I don't agree with that. Cheats have to be named and shamed. Fans of the sport deserve to know as well. I don't see what's stopping them from releasing the detailed evidence.
"AS: So based on that, you can definitively say that Lance Armstrong used EPO in the '99 Tour. No doubt in your mind.
MA: There is no doubt in my mind these samples contain synthetic EPO, they belong to Lance Armstrong, and there's no conceivable way that I can see that a lab could've spiked them in a way that the data has presented itself. So there is no doubt in my mind he took EPO during the '99 Tour."
pretty conclusive
Kinda hard to say when it seems every top cyclist was also cheating. And when everyone's cheating it becomes rather fair again. He's probably still the greatest cyclist ever.
It sounds like this cheating culture is very pervasive in cycling, I wonder if Lance had much of an option to resist doping if he wanted to be on a top team. No excuse, of course, but if it's an institutional problem then punishing the cyclists won't accomplish much.
If you read that interview linked above, the majority of riders were actually clean in the 99 (?) tests and only a small majority were using EPO so I'm not too sure of the "everybody does it" line.
I have absolutely no respect for Lance Armstrong. It was all going to come out in the end, it was a no-brainer not to fight the allegations. If there was any truth in what he says, he would fight tooth and nail to clear his name no matter what.
Couple of interesting pieces on Lancey boy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/26/lance-armstrong-doping-whistleblowers
http://media.newstalk.ie/podcast/66136/?uniqueID=7810
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/26/lance-armstrong-doping-whistleblowers
http://media.newstalk.ie/podcast/66136/?uniqueID=7810
We don't know whether all of the top cyclists were cheating, though clearly many of them were since they were caught. The interview in the link posted further up the page suggests that perhaps they weren't all cheating after all. Even if everyone else were cheating by taking illegal drugs, it is still grounds for disqualification, so there's nothing fair about what Armstrong did.
Your first paragraph reads a lot like what the Armstrong apologists in the US have been saying.
He was a guy who excelled in the harsher stages of tours. He was a King of the Mountain-type rider. But to win the tours, especially the TDF, you need to be good at time trials, at climbing, at sprinting and have a great team behind you. He was pulled out of his first two TDFs because he was a specialist who couldn't handle the rigours of the full tour. For me, it was only when people he regularly twatted in the mountain stages started whizzing past him, that he decided enough was enough.
No doubt about it- he was extremely gifted. He certainly benefitted from learning tactics (instead of just trying to win from the front/going with the breakaway every time), and he had some great cyclists giving him advice in his first two tours, but to imagine him as 7-time winner of the TDF would've taken a great leap of imagination. I think the combination of his massive ego (even the favourable biography "World's Greatest Champion" paints him as a selfish, moody twat), his obvious talent and the prize money garnered from that big race deal in the USA (name of the event escapes me, but he won all 3 races and got a million dollars), made him turn to drugs. There's also strong speculation that he was allowed to win the $1m by the other racers, so that they could get a share of the prize money. So, Lance starts off as a young kid and does really well vs the pro riders = awesome. Lance turns pro and wins the odd classic = awesome. Lance does the TDF and does well in the limited amount of time his team give him (mostly mountain/long stages) = awesome. Lance wins $1m in America and becomes a bit of a celebrity = awesome. Lance starts getting beaten in mountain stages by nobodies = wtf? Lance gets cancer (probably cost a pretty penny for the treatment as well) = double wtf?? Lance doesn't know anything except riding bikes and winning, but now he can't win coz everyone is doing EPO = Lance decides to do EPO.
That's what I think anyway.
No doubt about it- he was extremely gifted. He certainly benefitted from learning tactics (instead of just trying to win from the front/going with the breakaway every time), and he had some great cyclists giving him advice in his first two tours, but to imagine him as 7-time winner of the TDF would've taken a great leap of imagination. I think the combination of his massive ego (even the favourable biography "World's Greatest Champion" paints him as a selfish, moody twat), his obvious talent and the prize money garnered from that big race deal in the USA (name of the event escapes me, but he won all 3 races and got a million dollars), made him turn to drugs. There's also strong speculation that he was allowed to win the $1m by the other racers, so that they could get a share of the prize money. So, Lance starts off as a young kid and does really well vs the pro riders = awesome. Lance turns pro and wins the odd classic = awesome. Lance does the TDF and does well in the limited amount of time his team give him (mostly mountain/long stages) = awesome. Lance wins $1m in America and becomes a bit of a celebrity = awesome. Lance starts getting beaten in mountain stages by nobodies = wtf? Lance gets cancer (probably cost a pretty penny for the treatment as well) = double wtf?? Lance doesn't know anything except riding bikes and winning, but now he can't win coz everyone is doing EPO = Lance decides to do EPO.
That's what I think anyway.
That's not right at all. It wasn't until the late 90s he started excelling in the mountains, as a young rider he was more of a one-day classics type.
As for the last sentence of the second paragraph: Jesus tittyfecking Christ
Removing Armstrong from the TDF results & move everyone else up then everyone of the top 3 have been banned for drug offences either before or since.
Yep. It paints a picture of a rider who wasn't doping simply to compete on equal footing with the rest, but was doping himself to cheat himself to a substantial advantage against a large number of clean riders.
He's a fecking cheat and I have no problem with this witch hunt. I think it sends the right signal to contemporary cyclists. You may think you will get away with it now, but the truth will come out eventually and your legacy will be tarnished as it should be.
I think they mean to. As I understand it, this is what IOC is waiting for before commenting.
I wonder if he can be sued for it. He earned that money of false premises. Basically a con job.
On a related note:
Tour de France: Are drug-free cyclists slower?
Seems to suggest that the top riders today are clean. Or at least more clean.
Tour de France: Are drug-free cyclists slower?
Seems to suggest that the top riders today are clean. Or at least more clean.
Couldn't find a bigger one though. Shows all the riderss that have been caught at some point in their career in grey.
And all those current cyclists who go "yes he was doped, but..." are pathetic. It's a dead giveaway that their sympathies are with dopers, probably because they are, or have been, doped themselves.
They are the ones damaging the sport now with the attitudes towards all this.
They are the ones damaging the sport now with the attitudes towards all this.
Not quite. Kivilev has never been suspected of anything. Escartin, Beloki, Botero, Klöden and Mancebo have never been caught but to varying degrees suspected.
may i say that maradona's hand of god was a valid goal?
because that's what people defending Armstrong are saying, no matter if you cheat, but what you accompished by cheating
Maradona: took argentina to the world cup semifinals
Armstrong: won 7 Tour de France
because that's what people defending Armstrong are saying, no matter if you cheat, but what you accompished by cheating
Maradona: took argentina to the world cup semifinals
Armstrong: won 7 Tour de France
In one year Evans came 8th and is also the highest place rider seemingly clean. Kinell.
Not the same. Maradona's goal was a spur of the moment thing that shouldn't have stood anyway as it was so blatant.
Armstrong deliberately and concertedly cheated over a period of many years. The planning that went into dodging exposure, deliberation and intent over such a long timespan obviously makes his cheating much more severe.
Both are cheating, same as someone diving to win a penalty is cheating. Match-fixing for a full season (juve) is obviously also much worse than diving to win a penalty.
The severity of cheating is gradable. Organised and concerted cheating over a long period of time is about as bad as it gets. And that is what Armstrong is guilty of.
Highest placed presumably clean rider the years Armstrong won:
99: Daniele Nardello, 7th
00: Daniele Nardello, 10th
01: Andrei Kivilev(RIP), 4th
02: Carlos Sastre, 10th
03: Haimar Zubeldia, 5th
04: Carlos Sastre, 8th
05: Cadel Evans, 8th
Give the wins to these guys and kick the rest of 'em in the nuts (or in Lance's case - nut).
i agree with you mate
but the point i was trying to make -and i clearly failed- is that you don't cellebrate cheating
if a sportman cheated he can't be held as a great sportman as some posters here are trying to do
He can be sued, other convicted/admitted dopers have sued by their sponsors. Armstrong has already been to court with a sponsor who were reluctant to pay a win bonus after hearing constant and strong rumours of him doping.
The Lance Armstrong story is quite remarkable: here you have a man who, by his fans, is revered as the greatest athlete of all time and a charitable saint to boot; his accusers claim that he is the greatest fraud of all time, not just a doper, but the ring leader of 'one of the most sophisticated doping conspiracies of all time'.
The kind of man that it would take to live such a public lie and to be unflinching in his deception - has to be a psychopath.
I can believe it. He's a cnut of a man any way you look at it.
Far from an isolated story this. He's been ruinous for the sport.